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Once in a while you’ve got to remember to have a good old fashioned summer holiday, free from agenda, without every step being checked against a multitude of websites beforehand, with no plans beyond getting a tan, having a bit of a wander, and eating some good food.

This was one of those holidays. The Cyclades are a classic Mediterranean holiday destination, whose only mission in life is to host, for six months of the year, hordes of tourists, be they day-trippers from the cruise ships, two-week honeymooners, backpackers, or, in our case, casual island-hoppers.

Mykonos

Our first stop was Mykonos, with its classic maze-like old town, the bars of Little Venice, the inevitable decorative windmills, the beaches, the gays, the party crowd, and the omnipresent meltemi wind, always lashing the northern coast and making every beach visit an exercise in finding the optimal way to make sure your beach towel doesn’t turn into a sail. We largely avoided the “party” beaches and the ones where the sun loungers were almost on top of one another, and found some nicely sparse ones to the southeast called Elia and Lia. But we won’t be showing you the beaches here, because, well, that’s boring. What you’ll see below is a selection of shots mostly from Mykonos Town itself.

Sunset at Little Venice, Mykonos

Harbour fishing, Mykonos Town

Nap time, Mykonos Town

Kitchen of Niko’s Taverna, Mykonos

Railing and blue sky, Mykonos Town

Blue door, Mykonos Town

We enjoyed Mykonos and would go back, but the jewel in the crown was yet to come…

Santorini

Santorini is the glorious island that launched a million postcards, the result of a massive volcanic explosion that blew the top off the mountain island and left just the rims of the caldera poking above the Aegean. Since then, on the main island that remained, Thira, the steep rims of the caldera have been colonised by dramatic cliffside villages, blocky white “cave houses”, blue-domed churches and luxury villas stacked on top of one another, tumbling down the hills. It is immediately dramatic and beguiling, and we were lucky enough to have snagged a lovely little villa in the village of Firostefani, just north of the main town (also called Thira). We made a number of excursions to other destinations (the beaches at Perivolos and Vlychada as well as the towns of Pyrgos and Megalochori and the fishermen of Ammoudi Bay) and had some truly excellent food at places like To Psaraki in Vlychada and Aktaion and Mama Thira in Firostefani. It was a grand way to end the week.

Typical Blue Church Dome, Imerovigli, Santorini

Bougainvilla, Firostefani, Santorini

Santorini Caldera Coastline

Oia, Santorini

Lazy Cat, Oia, Santorini

Sandstone Cliffs, Vlychada, Santorini

Inter-generational fishing, Ammoudi Bay, Oia, Santorini

Classic Blue Church Dome, Oia, Santorini

Church Bells, Oia, Santorini

Of course the first thing every tourist guide and dog-eared Lonely Planet will tell you is that you shouldn’t miss the sunset from Oia. So we, along with every other tourist in Santorini, duly trekked north to participate in this mass ritual of sun worship. And I mean every other tourist. Despite the crowds we snagged one or two nice shots…

Sunset Crowds, Oia, Santorini

Panorama of Oia at Sunset, Santorini

Oia at Sunset, Santorini

That was to be all for our Clycladic adventure, however I knew that when I got back to London I would have to turn right back around the next day and leave for Bangkok on a work trip. More to come on that matter…

Of course, as ever, there are more photos from this trip to be found over on Flickr.

The weekend before last contained that rarest of things: a sunny, mild day in the midst of a London February. It would have been rude not to start the day with a chorizo sandwich in Borough Market and ruder still not to continue on the time-honoured South Bank stroll up to the Hungerford Bridge. I have done this walk so many times I could do it in my sleep, but I never get tired of it. Any excuse, as they say, and I usually bring a camera along because there are always interesting subjects, from the market, the river activity, the South Bank buildings, the other strollers, to street performers, the kids in the Undercroft and always a bit of randomness at some point in the trip.

These, without further ado, were some of the sights I saw that day…. more in my January/February 2011 Set on Flickr.

A few shots from Saturday’s stroll along the Thames and up into the grand parks of London on a glorious, hot, sunny day. One of the first of 2010. Pray there will be many more and that we don’t suffer another rubbish summer.